Cardinal Sean O’Malley was completing a pilgrimage for Boston priests in the Holy Land when he learned of the tragic deaths and horrific injuries following the bombings at the Boston Marathon.

The land that witnessed the ministry, suffering and death of Jesus Christ is no stranger to terrorist violence. In Boston, however, the heartbreak cast a shadow over the life of the city — and, indeed, the whole nation.

A terrorist attack vanquished innocent lives and destroyed the peace of a community.

Yet the heroic service of first responders and law enforcement officers who risked their lives, including the MIT policeman who lost his life, while on alert for the alleged perpetrators gave witness to goodness and self-sacrifice.

And, after his return, Cardinal O’Malley offered reassurance to his flock that the Good Shepherd was there to guide his sheep through the valley of death.

During his Good Shepherd Sunday homily, he reminded Bostonians that, after the Crucifixion, the apostles "scattered in fear, doubt and panic."

"On Easter, the Good Shepherd returns to gather the scattered; Mary Magdalene in grief, Thomas in doubt, Peter in betrayal," added the cardinal. "We too are scattered and need the assurance of the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for us, who comes to gather us in our scatteredness, in our brokenness and pain."

In the wake of the violence in Boston, as well as in Newtown, Conn., and elsewhere, however, there is a growing awareness that the threat to the nation’s peace does not only come from terrorists abroad.

The specter of alienated young men wreaking mayhem has stirred a deep sense of disquiet about whether the next generation shares the values and beliefs of their forefathers.

The Boston bombings mark an emerging pattern of violent attacks by disturbed U.S. citizens disconnected from the social mainstream and seemingly unconcerned about the sanctity of human life.

During his homily at the interfaith service for the Boston Marathon victims at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Cardinal O’Malley sought to defuse the very human desire for vengeance in the face of unmitigated evil, but he also drew attention to a troubling cultural trend of spiritual alienation and hyperindividualism.

"In the face of the present tragedy, we must ask ourselves: What kind of a community do we want to be? What are the ideals that we want to pass on to the next generation? It cannot be violence, hatred and fear," he said.

"God has entrusted us … to repair our broken world. We cannot do it as a collection of individuals; we can only do it together, as a community, as a family," Boston’s archbishop continued. "Like every tragedy, Monday’s events are a challenge and an opportunity for us to work together with a renewed spirit and solidarity and with the firm conviction that love is stronger than death."

Young Americans are growing into adulthood in a culture marked by the breakdown of the family, the natural sanctuary for personal communion, where virtues are lived and transmitted to the next generation. Meanwhile, the Ten Commandments were long ago removed from public schools, and the vacuum is being filled by a shifting, undefined but strictly enforced ethos of political correctness.

A symptom of this trend is the cyberbullying of religious believers like Michael Potter, the president of an organic foods company, who has been attacked for suing the federal government over the contraception mandate. Citizens who challenge the "dogma" of so-called reproductive rights or gender neutrality are savaged by social media, though the moral principles at work are rarely articulated in a consistent manner.

The spectacle strikes fear or cynicism in the hearts of young Americans, but it does not have the power to inspire goodness and lead the young to make choices for the sake of the common good.

Brutal acts of terrorism force a culture to question its embrace of individualism as an escape from the demands of others. But the events of the Boston Marathon also raise questions about the worthiness and stability of our present value system.

"Blessed are those who mourn," states the beatitudes. This is not a celebration of misery, but, rather, an acknowledgement that the righteous are properly disturbed by the reality of evil in the world.

If we care nothing for goodness, our mourning is reduced merely to an expression of pain and distress.

Cardinal O’Malley’s reflections remind us that the New Evangelization is needed to guide believers and all people of good will to the "civilization of love" at the very center of the Church.

The recent horror on Patriots Day, he said during his homily at the interfaith service, "shakes us out of our complacency and indifference and calls us to focus on the task of building a civilization that is based on love, justice, truth and service."

"We do not want to risk losing the legacy of those first patriots, who were willing to lay down their lives for the common good," he continued. "We must overcome the culture of death by promoting a culture of life, a profound respect for each and every human being made in the image and likeness of God, and we must cultivate a desire to give our lives in the service of others."

Marcus,is this reply the best you can offer in your efforts to “prove” your claims against Islam against the purity of Christians in general. If so, you might find an occupation awaiting you in writing scrips for the History filler show line-up. We Catholics can also be an insufferably arrogant lot as well. Remember what Franco was, Hitler as well? Oh, that’s it; “fascist.” Nice try.

Posted by Tom on Wednesday, May, 15, 2013 11:58 AM (EDT):

Please find it important to note. Mr. Barrett has much to learn about the truth in Islam. My family has noted it’s descent from the so-called mentally ill prophet Muhammed. Mr. Barrett notes that Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and others are paranoid fear-mongers. I would beg to differ, but to state that Muhammed because of his delusional self-indulgent behavior, believed himself to be the messiah. When Christians and Jews received his would-be machinations, they realistically rejected him as a false prophet, which he was. His hatred for others who rejected him, much like our sitting President, was the basis for what we now call Jihad. My ancestral Uncle Richard I, or Lion-heart, noted “From the devil we sprang to the devil we’ll go.” In his case, who knows what happened? The Kurd Saladin was the honorable one in that case. Islam is not a Christian heresy, but rather the combination of Arab pagan religion, Bedouin tribal thought, Christian scripture and Hebraic thought. Muhammed’s uncle was an Orthodox Christian. As we look at the paranoid delusional thoughts of the epileptic Muhammed, we need to take a look at ourselves. Muhammed’s family were Bedouin. What better way to gain control over a region through warfare and display your chieftain as the prophet or messiah of a new religion. There is no special hell for Christians or Jews. There is no such thing as martyrs receiving 72 virgins made of musk. Islamo Fascism is the most accurate term describing the savagery of this religion that has crushed so many. You might want to know as well, Mr. Barrett, that Queen Victoria was also a descendant of Muhammed. Christian heresy NO. Pelagianism, Gnosticism, Unitarianism, and other cult-like beliefs are Christian Heresy or the belief that one denomination of the Christian church is going to heaven.

Posted by Steven Barrett on Sunday, May, 12, 2013 4:30 PM (EDT):

@Marcus: Are you aware that Islam is the first Christian heresy? Okay, maybe that’s a small consideration to you; but when you stop and think about it, have you given thought to stronger likelihood of greater violence that occurs between the longer established government or church and the breakaway? Moving away from a purely religious take on this, look at our own history or that of Britain’s, Germany’s, France’s, Spain’s and Russia’s blood-drenched civil wars that were fought with a ferocity betwen forces even seldom witnessed between two warring nations that were never “tied at the tip” so to speak. (That’d cover our Pacific War with Japan which was beyond anything we’d encountered before because it was also a racial “fight to the death” quest put on the Japanese people by their “leaders” who should’ve known better what they were asking given that they primarily, if not alone, knew full well what the full price of modern warfare would mean to a highly industrialized society that had just pulled itself out of feudalism within less than a century. (Or war with Germany was racial as well, but less so since only because it was the Nazis in their zeal for some Wagnerian-like Valhalla/Teutonic mythical empire, who started and pretty much controlled Germany’s march into hell . . . and in return were beaten handidly by the largest army of soldiers, sailors, airmen hailing from Germanic descent: Ours, which was led by a German-American General, Dwight Eisenhower. On the other hand, civil wars, are wars like those big old family feuds, between people whose memories are forever nursed by one old grudge after another; not to mention how they keep their lanyards ever so short to “complement” their shorter memories of the good each member in their family possesses. And don’t we also know how the other guy’s going to slug it out so the quest to be “on top” keeps moving on and on and on. Look at what kept the last round of Ireland’s “Troubles” going. Look at what caused so much bloodshed between the Red and White Russian armies after WWI; Look at what historial Kevin Phillips called our first civil war, the French and Indian Wars plus our War for Independence. They represented several wars spread out for nearly an entire century for varying reasons, but they were indeed civil wars insofar as they represented two opposite sides of the same general ethnic and religious base; WASP Christians with substantial contributions from the French and various Indian Tribes of the Northeast. And as I mentioned earlier, let’s not forget our own Civil War, a war that’s still smoldering within the hearts of many Americans who still cannot bear the results of the first (and hopefully last, ever!) civil war that cost 700,000 lives. Much good came out of that war. As Shelby Foote noted during Ken Burns’ great series, “The Civil War,” from Appamattox onwards, when the United States spoke, they spoke as One Body,“Indivisible.” No thanks to the Tenthers, 2nd Amendment no-compromises at all stalwarts, Birthers, and a host of other pro-secesh and unreconstructed right-wing lost-causers, we may never finally put a damn stop plug in this tub of hatred’s poisons. But to put a blanket statement out to describe our present day struggle against the morst radicalized Muslims who represent only a miniscule speck of the overwhelming billions of Muslims who are very much like we are, and in many instances, they are indeed because they are American citizens. Don’t let the stupid acts of the younger Tsarnaev brothers throw off necessary and more humanely crafted immigration reforms. It was a cruel irony that this became a Naturalized American citizen on the 11th anniversary of 9/11. But does anybody think by swallowing up the regurgitated and poisoned ideological vomit of the Glenn Becks, Sean Hannitys and Bill O’Reilly’s of the media world, that we’re going to keep a lid on m ore w ould be killers like the Chechneyans? How many Gitmos will we have to build then out of sheer paranoia-induces fear? Just recently I watched a show on PBS “Passing Poston” featuring a series of recollections of Japanese American senior citizens who were just kids when they were packed off to live on already confiscated land once belonging to Native Americans. It was heartbreaking; especially so when I recalled how many years had to pass before the Irish decided they had enough of history’s balls n’ chains to lug around as a result of what the various governments under Queen Victoria did to keep the Irish dow n ev en af t er the Great Famine became for all intents and purposes, a tool for Westminster to use against Irish Catholics to push over the Atlandic to become the US and Canada’s “problems.” Altough I’m not for phony Kumbaya symbolism; it still wouldn’t hurt to (constructively) use our jaws more often than our trigger fingers.

Following Jesus solves all the problems. But we, starting with our Leaders in Religion do not speak of FOLLOWING Jesus the Lord to solve all our FEAR of DEATH, TERROR or HELL.

Posted by Marcus on Sunday, May, 5, 2013 5:46 AM (EDT):

Ann, I think it is a bit too much to ask to preach a profound respect to those radicalized of the Muslim faith. As a matter of fact, the bombers were very much connected to the Muslim faith. They did nothing more than what the Koran expected them to do.

I think it is about time that we stop tippy toeing around Islam. It is not a religion of peace but of violence.

That there are not more terrorists than there are is because not many are true followers of Islam. What we see on display at Boston is the true and faithful Muslim.

Posted by Ann on Sunday, May, 5, 2013 5:13 AM (EDT):

It’s not the Catholics who need to have “a profound respect for each and every human being made in the image and likeness of God”- it’s the radicalized and disconnected of the Muslim faith, who need to practice and preach this message to all of the youth overseas, from where these two came, and then it will be a start to becoming a better and safer nation. It was good that all of Boston did not terrorize or vandalize the mosque where the older brother attended services, it shows that the actions of a few does not represent the whole of the Muslim faith. It was a lesson well learned from 9/11.

Posted by TomD on Saturday, May, 4, 2013 7:29 PM (EDT):

“Yet the heroic service of first responders and law enforcement officers who risked their lives, including the MIT policeman who lost his life, while on alert for the ALLEGED perpetrators gave witness to goodness and self-sacrifice.”

Why is the word ALLEGED in this sentence? The sentence does not refer to any particular person, so ALLEGED cannot apply to the younger Tsarnaev brother (and BTW, his brother is dead, dead people lack civil rights, therefore we don’t have to use the word ALLEGED with the older brother). In this use is sounds as if the crime itself is ALLEGED, which is an absurdity.

Posted by Anon on Saturday, May, 4, 2013 3:41 PM (EDT):

How many people were killed in Newton? Not to diminish that but that many people get killed every week in the city of Chicago. And most of them are killed with guns that are illegal. We are not enforcing the laws already on the books. The new laws being proposed are not aimed at the criminals that are killing thousands every year in our cities. Why this unwillingness to overlook the illegal guns in the hands of criminals? Drugs are completely illegal yet criminals get their hands on them all the time. So we have legislators touting more laws for lawabiding citizens who have no interest in prosecuting criminals for their illegal guns. you can go into the city and visit the drug markets and there will be dozens of men in the area carrying ilegal concealed guns. And the gun advocates don’t give a hoot. But that farmer that wants to buy a gun to kill the wolves who are killing his livestock, well we need to stop him. I don’t get all the hypocrisy.

Posted by anthonymixan on Saturday, May, 4, 2013 3:41 PM (EDT):

Have you hugged a Muzzie today?

Posted by May on Saturday, May, 4, 2013 12:07 PM (EDT):

Jesus is Love and we are His Church. We must counter the hate of Islam with love but we must do it with full knowledge of what we are dealing with. I recommend two books: “Because They Hate” by Brigitte Gabriel, an Eastern Rite Catholic who grew up in Lebanon during the Lebanese war. Also, “A God Who Hates” by Dr. Wafa Sultan, MD, a former Muslim who grew up in the Middle East and who now lives in America. Her native tongue is Arabic so she is able to explain what the Koran really teaches and has taught since the beginning. Both books are eye openers. When you understand what Islam is all about, the events such as 911 and all the attacks in this country since, including the Boston Bombings, make perfect (evil) sense. We must wake up as a nation and stop our vunerablility before it is too late.

Posted by Mary on Saturday, May, 4, 2013 11:48 AM (EDT):

don’t think these are the only two that planed this. The democrats would like us to believe this, maybe not all of them but most of them. We are in violent times. These people don’t like our beliefs and want us to believe they way they do. MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON THEIR SOULS

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